


It Is Quiet

by Alemantele



Series: Godbrother AU [2]
Category: Kagerou Project, Mekakucity Actors
Genre: F/M, godbro!AU, seto is a little bit crazy but then again who isn't
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-19
Updated: 2014-07-19
Packaged: 2018-02-09 14:06:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,364
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1985772
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Alemantele/pseuds/Alemantele
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She does not have a name—she does not need one.</p><p>“I’ll find you someday,” he murmurs, letting the breeze carry his words into the air. Perhaps she’ll hear them, then, eventually. “I promise.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	It Is Quiet

**Author's Note:**

> This one might require a bit of context to understand, since it's a part of a reimagining of kagepro. In it, Azami and Medusae (including Mary) don't actually exist, but the stories of them do. Seto ends up looking for a girl he's been imagining since Ayaka told him the fairytales when he was younger.

He finished the job early for once, today.

Seto smiles softly to nobody at all, and continues cleaning up the buckets of paint left outside the old shed. It had taken him less than a week to paint the entire thing. He picks at pieces of dried paint still clinging to his cheek, and collects the brushes he will use again for the next job he picks up.

He grabs the half empty buckets and heads back towards the main house. Already, at a few metres away, he can pick up the faint murmurs of the family’s minds, and he scowls as he tries to ignore it. ( _Dammit_ )

Without him even noticing it, his footsteps pick up their pace as he makes his way to the door. He needed to get this stupid thing over with already. Kido had asked him why he doesn’t get a better paying job, one at a store or for doing something other than labour, and he really didn’t feel like telling her that he didn’t like interacting with people.

Well.

It wasn’t the interaction that he minded so much, but the way their thoughts seemed to fucking intrude into his mind and he simultaneously felt invaded (get out get out those aren’t  _my_ thoughts) but also so  _so_ guilty for overhearing such private things and—

Seto sighs, halts his own wayward thoughts where they are, and raises a hand to knock on the door.

He holds up the buckets of paint as a greeting when the door swings open, suddenly feeling a wave of wariness, and smiles. (The smile is strained.)  

“You done, kid?” the owner of the house asks.

Seto nods, still smiling vacantly. He is trying to shut out the wary thoughts running through the owner’s mind about how he couldn’t possibly be done this quickly and how it mustn’t’ve been a very good job of it and he just knew he shouldn’t have hired such a sketchy kid off the damn streets and anyone working for such a small price definitely couldn’t do a very good job of it and, and Seto just wants it to  _stop._

The owner cranes his head out of the doorway to survey Seto’s work, and a flurry of pleasantly surprised thoughts floods Seto’s mind, too jumbled up to discern but still easy to understand the tone of it all. Seto sighs.

“Not bad,” the owner says, giving Seto’s a gruff smile in return. He slaps 200 dollars in Seto’s hand and turns to slam the door shut again.

Seto looks down slightly at the amount of money—damn, the owner was  _cheap—_ shrugs his shoulders, and then stuffs it into one of his myriad of pockets. He leaves the paint buckets on the porch but takes the brushes with him as he goes, and then trudges back down the stairs. This house is one of many located half outside of civilization, on the edge of the forest. Seto tilts his head back and feels the sunlight washing over his face.

He grew up near forests, and being here brings back memories of both childhood wonder and fear.

Checking his watch, Seto realizes that he still has half the day before he needs to go back and meet up with Kido and Kano. He briefly wonders what they are doing (probably fooling around again, being useless like freaking always—no, no,  _stop_ ) and contemplates heading back early to give them a surprise.

But then a slow breeze blows in from deep within the forest, and Seto turns.

Seto squares his shoulders, decides to make up for it by taking on a few more jobs the next week, and walks into the trees.

And then, at last, it is quiet.

Seto feels the strange thoughts untangling from his mind, and breathes a sigh of relief.

Out here, he is much too far from anyone to hear errant thoughts. The wind rushes through the trees and Seto closes his eyes, a soft and genuine smile curling his lips for the first time in a long time.

At last. Quiet. It has never been so wonderful.

He still remembers wandering through the trees as a boy.

He still remembers the dog he had found, sitting at the edge of a clearing, perhaps lost. (He still remembers rushing river waters.)

But the memories of Ayaka’s warm words washing over him as he fell asleep, weaving a story of medusa and forests and  _wonder_ are much more recent, and much stronger.

Seto starts to walk again, feeling nature underneath his feet, wondering if this was, perhaps, the forest that the stories were talking about all along.

(This is not a new thought. Every time they move, every time they go to a new patch of trees anywhere in the city, Seto thinks this. Every time they explore, Kido goes to malls to survey the population unseen, Kano goes wherever he decides to on a whim, and Seto goes to the nearest forest.

This is not a new thought, but Seto thinks it anyways.

At least it is his own.)

“I know you’re out there,” he says to nobody. “I know you exist.”

He thinks of a girl with hair pure white and eyes glowing red. Her hair is made of serpents, but they hide away when she sees Seto. She is shy, to have hidden in a forest for so long. She is radiant, and young, and immortal, but Seto falls in love with the thought of her anyways.

She does not have a name—she does not need one.

“I’ll find you someday,” he murmurs, letting the breeze carry his words into the air. Perhaps she’ll hear them, then, eventually. “I promise.”

Seto knows that this is perhaps not the healthiest thing he could be doing.

Still, the medusa girl he pictures in his mind helps to ground him in reality. Are the thoughts crowding his head his own? Do they think of the girl-with-white-snake-hair-and-radiant-red-eyes? No? Then it is foreign. Seto does not let himself fall into others’ thoughts as easily now, and he can sometimes turn it on and off as he wishes.

But then there will be someone who can’t control their emotions—someone who lets the seething insults or pathetic wailing in their heads reach ridiculously high volumes—and Seto loses it all over again.

He does not have Kido’s control or Kano’s practice. He cannot let himself be lost in unfamiliar thoughts.

So he thinks of forests and drowning and dogs and the medusa. And he lets his own thoughts take on a familiar feeling—a pattern a colour a sensation—all so that he _will. Not. Lose. Himself._

Seto breathes in the forest’s scent, closes his eyes again, and relishes in the quiet.

There is no one around to interfere with his thoughts. No one at all.

The girl in his mind has thoughts that are so secret she does not let anyone see. She has snakes for hair and Ayaka had always said that their powers originated from the snakes anyways so Seto’s penetrating eyes cannot pierce her thoughts. The girl’s mind is always quiet, but she will trust Seto and tell him things in due time.

In return, Seto loves her for her quiet and trusts her as well and he waits for the time when she will reveal herself to him.

The forest smells like pine and cedar and fresh air. Seto brushes his hand over the trunk of a tree and imagines a house just beyond the next turn.

It is quiet. It is  _so_ quiet.

Seto sighs softly, banishes the delusions and hopes and dreams out of his mind. Perhaps he would never find this girl after all. Perhaps she never even existed. Still, Seto believed in Ayaka’s stories and he believes in the medusa and her snakes and her lovely red eyes, and he will look for her even if it is a futile search.

Who knows. Perhaps she doesn’t even live in Japan.

He smiles again, just so that she’ll see it if she is in this forest, and sets back out to find Kano and Kido.

(It is still  _so_ quiet.) 


End file.
